Friday, November 19, 2010

I realized recently that I have almost no scrapbooking examples on my blog. It was only recently that I focused so completely on cardmaking; for the longest time, I mostly made memory books. Of course, most of those got sent off to family, so I have few examples in my home either. So I decided to make a memory book of our garden this year. As inspiration I used the If It's GroovyBirds challenge.

I used a paisley for the birds, my new favorite trick. I also incorporated the info stakes that came with our plants.

My mom just sent me a bunch of wooden stamps that she picked up at a crafters' yard sale. Three are large medallions of the sort I've been coveting but couldn't quite afford yet. After these two cards, I think Mom got her dollar's worth!I have so much respect for people who do a lot of hand-cutting for their crafts, but I try not to do it too much because it makes my hand cramp something terrible, plus I would never have time to do anything else! That being said, I couldn't resist layering the medallion for this card. I embossed pink on red and burgundy, and red on pink.

Monday, November 15, 2010

I love fancy folds for cards, so I loved the diamond fold challenge at Craft Your Passion. They have a fantastic tutorial to help you get started, plus incredible inspiration by the DT. I decided to try this week's Tellen's Place challenge as well, which is to use a black background.

For the card base I used Recollections gold paper. I used a texturing plate to emboss black Core'dinations cardstock (because its tough and can really take some punishment) and was pleased with the leathery result. For the medallion, I used a lovely new rubber stamp on translucent polymer clay. After baking it, I "aged" it with gold ink. Mom's been bugging me to try clay on cards for some time now, but it seemed like one thing too many. Now I think I'm hooked!Inspiration: Craft Your Passion Challenge #32 Technique: Diamond foldTellen's Place Black Background ChallengeSupplies: Recollections & Core'dinations cardstocks, ZipDry glue, Fiskars papercutter & corner punch, embossing texture plate & texturing tool, ColorBox pigment ink, Sculpey polymer clay, Rubber stamp by Inkadinkado

Update 12/3/10: This card made the top 3 for Tellen's Place Black Background Challenge.

I was kinda excited try this week's Michaels' Craft Some Holiday Magic challenge, but one of the mystery items is Chargers. Come on, chargers? As in decorative plates you put under your normal plates? Hmm, sounds like a giant chainstore is trying to empty out its backrooms. Too fancy for me.

So I was very happy to see the fun challenge over at Crafty Cardmakers: card & matching gift. Oh boy, you should check out their DT projects. Incredible! But I just had to try my hand at the challenge.

I used a house box template I found months ago at Amy's SVGs and made a matching card by tracing it in SCAL. And of course I had to make windows and a doorway for the card. The "sentiment" is a stamp I've been saving for the holidays. I cut the lightbulbs on the box from the cardstock I used for the box and the card, and attached a bow to the top to make it easy to open.

I've been looking for a cute way to give friends and neighbors some marshmallows, and I think I found it!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The moment I saw the adorable turkey silverware clips on the FIskars website, I knew I had to make a turkey book. Well, maybe a card. I took up the Anything Goes challenge at the Cute Card Thursday blog and just had tons of fun with it.I couldn't find quite the turkey template I wanted, so I made the turkey Kindergarten-style (2 circles & 1 triangle), fashioned the tail feathers from a paisley cutting file, and edged the pieces with pastels.

Yummy homemade marshmallows plus this funny little guy would make a cute gift for a family gathering (whether you're attending in person or in spirit!) Well, what a coincidence, we have a marshmallow business, Blasted! Marshmallows.Our first deal of the season is the $10 gift paired with this turkey card.You can order online. Thank you!

While on our weekly Saturday-morning trip to Michaels I picked up a flyer for a month-long contest they're having via FaceBook: Craft Some Holiday Magic. So naturally I spent the rest of the day using my new dollar stamps to make this little magic picture card. At 3x4 inches, it would actually make a cute ornament itself. And it holds well enough that the card doesn't slide out.

Check out the Michaels challenge...even if you don't enter, the projects are amazing!This week's challenge is ornament, ribbon, beads, so I broke out my old stash of plastic beads and tried my hand at some beadwork. I hand-colored the stamps for the stationary elements of the card and used a bright blue ink for the "floating" trees. I'm proud to say that all of these materials were purchased at my (or my mom's) local Michaels.

As soon as I got my crafty little fingers on this new freebie by Therese Travis at Too Many Ideas, I knew I'd be making a pull-tab card. I used the template I made for a similar Halloween card (photo on CDAC) which I'd sent to lots of family. Oh how I love PaperFaces Designs! I never get bored with them. This kind of card is a favorite of mine, because it feeds equally my need for the interactive and my desire to use my pretty gel pens. I plugged in some photos from last Christmas (the tree, the family, Walt destroying his gift from Mrs. Claus) and added a ribbon and bow to make it feel "gifty". I wanted some text on it and "Merry" seemed appropriate, especially with that emotive M. Although it's difficult to see in these photos, the white elements are "glittered" with Polar White Flowersoft, my new go-to white.

Can't wait to work with this image again. Doesn't it just scream patterned paper?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I want to thank everyone for the wonderful, heartfelt response to my post for last week's Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge. For once, I'm really without words. So, here's a super-fun card for this week's challenge!And I used Color Throwdown Challenge #118 as well, because I love to make them smile too. And O! how I do love their combos.I wanted to use the digi stamp of our iguana Percy again, so I paired it with a favorite poem, "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (our iguana's namesake). Using an iguana as a kind of metaphor works well with the poem's message, and I've done it many times before with very different projects. "Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

The colors are soft suede, cherry cobbler, and kraft. I chose to use the deep red for the text, which makes it more artsy than readable, but that's okay. I colored the image with pastels (that have been sitting in the attic for, my goodness, at least a decade) and Q-tips. I created the "soft suede" background with antiquing mist, on the same paper as the card itself. I ran the vellum text pieces through my sticker machine to give them complete adhesive coverage, and it really worked great! I really like how the iguana overlaps the text boxes but also shows through them. This was so much fun, I hope he likes it!

I'm totally crushin' on the vintage images over at Create with Tlc, but I try to limit my use of free images. Then I realized that I have a small stash of vintage-y images that I purchased from ClipArt.com last year. I was going to use them for Marion Winik's website, as they match the images in a recent book, but then just ended up keeping them for some future project. And here's that project! One of these cards is going to Marion, especially since I think that technically she might have purchased the images for the project, and the other is going to the wonderful women at Passager. I'm going to be including invoices, but hopefully these cards are cute enough to soften the blow!Concept aside, I love participating in color challenges because they really get me thinking about patterns, textures and interesting color combos. I went to the fantastic resource of Scrapmaster's Paradise for the color choices for these cards. For the first one I used their color combo #73, but for the second I used their groovy color combo generator. I love that the generator gives you the option of choosing one color you know you want to work with; in this case, I chose green because I wanted to use my new Pine stamp pad. I definitely will be revisiting both of these combos.Inspiration: Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combo Challenge #73 & SP Color Combo GeneratorFont: Speedball No. 3 by Nick CurtisImage: Clipart.comRubber Stamp: Tiled Quad Cube by Stampendous!Supplies: Recollections cardstock, ZipDry glue, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign & Photoshop, Offray ribbon, stash eyelet, Fiskars papercutter and decorative scissors, CraftSmart ink

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Since I already had my snowflake punch out, I was excited to see the Snowflakes challenge at A Spoon Full of Sugar.I started by punching out a border and stamping the snowflake image through the mask. I used the mask piece on the front; the ink made a nice background. I used snowflake brads to attach two sets of green/white snowflake punch-outs to the back, above the stamped images. For my main image I chose another lovely freebie from Tlc Creations, and colorized it green in Photoshop. I added some Polar White FlowerSoft to the birds and the centers on the front snowflakes. I finished it up with a bow containing 2 snowflakes.I'm happy with the result, but let's face it: it could always use more snowflakes.

I've been really intrigued by the current "Twas the Night before Christmas" challenge over at Allsorts, but my ideas were all over the place so I put it on the back burner. I pulled the pot out front the moment I saw the precious (and free!) Vintage Upon the Roof Top digi by Tlc Creations. I went back to the original poem and rediscovered a favorite stanza:

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane flyWhen they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,With the sleigh full of Toys and St Nicholas too.

I've always loved the image of the "sleigh full of St. Nicholas."

For the card design itself I looked to the zig-zag fold, which I unnecessarily cut on my Cricut. At first I wasn't sure how I'd color such a detailed image, so I decided to use chalks to give it a "vintage" feeling, whatever that means. I've been pretty confident about working with snow on images ever since I found Polar White FlowerSoft. Oooh it's so pretty. For that "something extra" I pulled out my snowflake punch and made good use of some silver and gold scrap paper.Inspiration: Allsorts Challenge #77, Twas the Night before ChristmasZig-zag fold adapted from OWH TutorialDigi Stamp: Vintage Upon the Roof Top by Tlc CreationsSupplies: Recollections and K&Company cardstocks, ZipDry & Tacky glues, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign, Pebbles Inc. chalks, Martha Stewart & Fiskars punches, FlowerSoft

Monday, November 8, 2010

Ever since I saw Papercraft Vixxen's super instructions I've been itching to make a triangle fold card. Like a trifold card, it's relatively simple to cut and fold but packs a real visual punch. I always like to try something new for the Color Throwdown challenge, letting the concept and colors speak for themselves. For this week's challenge I used a new rubber stamp we found in the Michael's sale bin.This was such a great color combo to work with (kraft, tangerine tango, riding hood red, marine mist), and I'm officially in love with this stamp. Originally I was going to keep it simple, but then I showed the first sample paper to my Baby and he said, Wow, do we know what it looks like embossed yet? and so I made an embossed cutout for the front. For the message section I made a frame with the lace stamp by hand-coloring the elements I wanted with a blue stamp pen. I felt like the card needed something extra for the middle, so I decided to turn it into a Diwali card (three days late!). I found a nice image of Ganesha from a printable coloring-book site and printed it in blue on kraft paper. I'd like to color the image sometime, but for this card I wanted to keep it simple so I just added a few "gems" with a shiny gel pen.I always like to work with Ganesha images. As Wikipedia says, He is popularly worshiped as a remover of obstacles, though traditionally he also places obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked. Never a bad thing to hope for!Inspiration: Color Throwdown #117Triangle fold card template: Stamp My ArtStamp: Fassi Jewel by Stampendous!Diwali image: BillyBear4KidsSupplies: Recollections and DCWV cardstocks, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign, Sakura Gelly Roll pens, Marvy LePlumeII & American Craft paint pens, StazOn ink, Martha Stewart embossing powder, heat embossing tool

Sunday, November 7, 2010

The sudden transition of our backyard view from leafy canopy to bare sky has hit me especially hard this year, and it all happened so quickly I hardly had time to enjoy the colors (and by enjoy I mean craft about). But I've enjoyed most beautiful show of Orion's proud stance the past few nights, so I've decided to embrace the fall-ish colors and keep the spring-y flowers for their season.For this week's super Tuesday Trio sketch challenge, I went with a rough color palette of yellow, green, orange and red. I cut stamp into three overlapping sections and then stamped it on vellum and cut out some small details of winged things, the extra challenge for this week. My favorite part is the "stump" border.

I ordered some custom digi stamps from the talented and ever-generous Therese Travis, and I couldn't wait to play with the digi she did of our iguana Percy! He's about 10 now and is part of our little family. Mom keeps a photo of her "grandiguana" in her wallet. Sadly, we haven't had much luck finding good crafting materials with iguanas. Geckos, maybe, but not so much the soft-hearted, spiky-backed ancestors of our sweet Percy.

Therese did an incredible job. As soon as I saw the perfect tail I knew I had to make the tail stripes change color. It's just a simple spin card, but it's one of my favorite tricks and I know I'll get a lot of use out of this design.

Don't get me wrong, I must have a certain amount of confidence to enter—what is it now?—seven challenges a week, but sometimes the enormity of the talent out there weighs on me. You know how it is: You're standing in the kitchen with your glasses fogging up from the heat of the embossing gun and you think to yourself, Perhaps I should leave this to the professionals. But then you suck on your fingers and remember how good it feels to sound your barbaric yawp over the blogs of the world...The Midnight Madness Sketch Challenges by priscillastyles especially make me feel like this, which is in fact a compliment. So many talented people inspiring so many talented people! But I find myself entering their challenge week after week, I guess because of that yawp thing I mentioned earlier (original quote from Walt Whitman.) I still feel very green and creatively raw when it comes to cardmaking, but challenges like these help me develop my skills and keep me happily occupied. Thanks to all who've peeked at my cards! and especially thanks for commenting.Anyhoo, I had lots of fun with this week's sketch:I've really taken to coloring stamps on vellum, because it's a bit easier to keep within the lines and the end result really pops. I read about this technique somewhere in the blogosphere, where you color on the back of stamped vellum. I also broke out my brand new mist, and I'm hooked. I used painter's tape to mask the main stamp and spray on the mist background. It worked so well I couldn't believe it.I choose a green/brown color palette because I'm in a flowery mood but can't separate myself from the autumn tapping on my window.

Friday, November 5, 2010

So I walked away, briefly, from my new favorite plastic stamp and had some fun mixing two challenges to make this little Thanksgiving card.I really liked this month's CDAC color combo and its free digis — altho I decided to pair the lovely sentiment with my go-to-gal, Angel Stacie from paperfacesdesign — and chose the handsome sketch at Paper Pretties Wednesday Challenge. I used copic markers for the digi's background ... I think I like it!And yes, the main circle spins.

Ever since I ordered some yummy Stampin' UP! paper from SP & Company and then won-can-you-believe-it their Ornamental Tree stamp set, I've been sorta stalking our mailman. The dogs start barking the moment he parks on the corner and sometimes I stand at the door waiting for him in a Mayberry kind of way. He got a giant wave and thank-you when I got my package! What he doesn't know is that Mom's sending me another 10-lb box of paper... He's definitely getting a complicated card this holiday!Within an hour of receiving my new stamps, I'd tried heat embossing, paper decorating, and color-on stamping. So much fun! I knew from the samples online that they are beautiful and delicate images, and I'm really happy with how well they stamp on different materials. Four challenge cards later, I decided I'd better stop and blog. This post was going to be more detailed, but I really need to get back to stamping...

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

So Mom and I found these awesome stamps and scrapbooking products featuring designs from everybody's favorite childhood books by Beatrix Potter. We had to order from England to find my all-time fav, Two Bad Mice. See, they overcame their inherent selfishness to become civilized and empathetic, unlike Peter Rabbit whose troublesome ways just put his whole family in mortal danger. Yes, I was a very odd child.

Living in an old city with old homes, I've often bonded with people over mouse invasions. I wanted to make some cards with the adorable stamps but was having trouble designing a card with them. Enter CASE Study challenge #12! Whew! It really helped it all come together.

For the card itself I printed a sheet of mouse tracks and then stamped them onto yellow paper, just for the effect. I highly recommend these rubber stamps; they come unmounted, but once you get mounting foam on them they stamp all their detail beautifully.